Engineering encompasses all aspects of electricity from power engineering, the development of the devices for the generation and transmission of electrical power, to electronics. Electronics is a branch of electrical engineering that deals with devices that use electricity for control of processes. Subspecialties of electronics include computer engineering, microwave engineering, communications, and digital signal processing. It is the engineering specialty that has grown the most in recent decades.

 

 

The Hubble Telescope, one of the largest and most complex satellites ever built, was the result of over 20 years of science research and engineering.

Deployed April 25, 1990 from the space shuttle Discovery, Hubble barely skims the Earth’s atmosphere, orbiting just 380 miles above our planet. It is the size of a school bus and looks like a five-story tower of stacked silver canisters. Each canister houses important telescope equipment: the focusing mirrors, computers, imaging instruments, and pointing and control mechanisms. Extending from the telescope are solar panels for generating electricity and antennas for communicating with operators on the ground. It is named after American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble, who among other achievements, discovered in 1929 that the universe is expanding. Every 97 minutes, the Hubble telescope orbits around Earth, moving at the speed of five miles per second — fast enough to travel across the United States in about 10 minutes.

The first “computer program” was designed by a famous poet’s daughter in 1843.

Ada Byron Lovelace, daughter of famous poet Lord Byron, published a paper in 1843 that predicted the development of computer software, artificial intelligence, and computer music. In 1834, Ada heard of Charles Babbage’s ideas for a new calculating engine – the Analytical Engine. After translating an Italian’s summary of the engine, Babbage suggested to Ada that she add her own notes. Her notes turned out to be three times as long as the original article! Ada suggested to Babbage a plan for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Analytical Engine. This plan is now regarded as the first “computer program.”  Although the computers that we use now were not invented until the late 1900s, Babbage was in the midst of  working on his computer design weighing about 15 tons! Lovelace and Babbage worked together to create the first computer and computer program. Now, the programming language “Ada”, which is the official programming language of the United States military, was named after Ms. Lovelace, and the military standard for the language, “MIL-STD-1815” was given the number of the year of  Ada Lovelace’s birth.